A read head assembly, or a head gimbal assembly (HGA), for a magnetic hard drive is tested before being assembled into a head stack assembly (HSA) and placed into a magnetic hard drive during production. Testing prevents the placement of an unqualified HGA in a hard drive. Dynamic testing of an HGA allows for a full suite of reading and writing tests to be performed. However, dynamic testing is time consuming and because of this expensive. If an HGA does not function well, a full suite of tests are not warranted. Quasi-static testing of an HGA allows for qualifying an HGA for dynamic testing or as a simple pass-fail test before placing an HGA in a drive. However, for quasi-static testing, proper identification of the HGA must be made so that test results are associated with the correct HGA unit. Also, if the HGA is not tested under the same conditions, then the results will not be useful in qualifying the HGA for dynamic testing or placing in a drive.